Obnoxious Christians in Australia are setting fire to sacred Aboriginal objects. George Pell: The cardinal was aware of children being sexually abused.

Catholics have been taking bits of Jesus home in plastic bags to eat in their own time but at least they have all stopped drinking alcohol together from the same poisoned chalice. I just hope the plastic is recycled.

Poll: The ‘Trump bump’ is over, especially among white Christians. Their case for Trump is a thin reed. America needs more atheists in public office.

If Disney TV has not enough fantasy for you then try a free trial of Answers TV with the further adventures of Cubitman and his sidekick Bananaman.

I’d be mighty mighty cautious when quoting a Quilette story on anything to do with gender, sexuality or sexual abuse. They have published famously sexist, transphobic, homophobic articles and countless articles skeptical of claims of sexual harassment and assault. While the metaphor of the article makes sense (digging holes) and the particular example per the democratic party is ironic…that wasn’t the point of the article. It was written by a known misogynist who has written many articles against the general concept of believing survivors of sexual assault and is in his own words in a campaign against SJW. Yes the democrats dug themselves into a hole and misused sexual abuse in the process (in a very bad way) but the author’s goal is discussing his own doubt about believing victims.

It’s not that he has a conservative bent or a non-politically correct view, it’s just the way he does it (and many Quilette articles) are quite toxic and frequently deceptive or intellectually dishonest.

Quilette is a difficult source, because on the one hand there are some insightful and challenging articles on a variety of topics, but on the other hand in the social sphere they deal in the extreme to the very extreme it is the right side of the political spectrum of quoting radical communists or militant woke justice critics.

How could the Big Bang be the birth of our Universe? What will the end of the Universe look like?

I think most cosmologists are placing their bets on The Big Chill (Big Freeze) due to the relatively recent discovery that the expansion of the universe is actually increasing in pace, not slowing down. A contraction appears unlikely based on what we know now.

Dark energy seems to be behind this expansion and the best hope for reversing the expansion may come from dark matter. Dark matter and energy are what most of the universe is made of, it seems, and yet we have no clue what they are. Are they due to so far undetected particles? Is some extra dimension involved? Don’t ask me! LOL

If the universe continues to expand, clusters of matter like galaxies and eventually stars and solar systems will become so far apart that they will be unable to detect each other. So, we may be living in a golden age of knowledge wherein our scientists can observe our surroundings and derive some understanding of the universe. Many billions of years in the future, scientists may believe that what they can see locally is all there is. Sad.

@davis – I agree about the Quilette site. They do have some very good articles but you are correct in that many of them sink lower than their headline would suggest. I was not aware of other articles by this author.

I did wonder myself why Tara Reade waited until Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee before speaking out. I absolutely believe she has a valid case but why not mention it when he ran in 2008? Maybe it did need the #metoo movement for her to come forward but again why not when he launched his campaign or even before Super Tuesday?

Yes, not only is the Universe expanding, the rate of this expansion is accelerating. The galaxies are speeding away from each other and at some future point they will not “see” each other. I think the best way of imagining it is that of the balloon analogy. Before you inflate a large balloon, get a sharpie pen and point random dots on it. As it inflates the spots seem to move away from each other. At some point no spot would be visible to anyone standing on one. It is not that the spots or galaxies are somehow repelling each other but that the space between them is increasing. This reduces the effect that gravity has on nearby massive objects. Or more correctly put, the curvature of spacetime is continually being flatten out. Even our Moon is moving away from us (about 4cm each year).

If you are standing on one spot then the 3rd spot from you would be moving away faster than the second one. This is down to Dark Matter which we know very little about (yet). It could be that Dark Energy is increasing. Thanks Hubble. It will most likely end in a “heat death”.

I find the last sentence of this article unbelievably cynical. Maybe politics is unbelievably cynical. Maybe Konstantin Kisin is unbelievably cynical.

The throwing of stones by the inhabitants of glass dwellings is not a good long-term strategy and since we all have a glass pane or two in our houses perhaps we ought to consider putting our rocks down every now and then.

I am sure the ACLU is going to have a busy time ahead. The privileged will be banging on about their rights being trampled upon. So many people seem to consider “freedom” to be something that comes with no responsibility towards others.